Purchase Request:(1) MasterPeace Personal Computing Environment
Price: $7,000.00
Purchase Reason: An ergonomically designed space will reduce the risk of repeatitive strain injury (RSI) and increase my overall productivity while I'm in the office thereby decreasing expenses and generating additional revenues for the company.
In general, people are contributing their creations from their grey matter on the belief that they will be justly compensated for their efforts. Most people on this planet would not want to do something and not be compensated for their doing (unless they're communists, and even then...).
For instance, no one likes to go to work for an employer, work very hard for three years and receive absolutely no compensation for their work. In this instance, people would scream bloody murder at the employer for not providing adequate compensation.
Therefore, it necessarily follows that people that contribute substantive creations would like to have their works protected from those that seek to gain an unfair advantage in this world. In other words, no one likes having something stolen from them...especially if they've worked very hard and spent many millions on that something.
In the world of Linux, Microsoft and even piracy in general, there are a number of individuals and companies that are stealing these works and gaining compensation without rewarding the original creator of the works. Therefore, these individuals and companies are guilty of a crime. In this case, they are guilty of patent or copyright infringement.
If it is proven that IBM is guilty of patent infringement, then they deserve whatever they get. In addition, those works would need to be removed and replaced by better routines. It's a shame that IBM never learned from the Compaq BIOS experience and lawsuits.
Here's a silly idea:
Why don't we, as the technical community, start a non-profit company whose sole purpose in life is to patent and copyright the stuff that we love to see everyone use. That way, we can always use those features without fear of Amazons of the world taking over and telling us what we can and cannot use. This was done for the SARS genome code (Protective Patent vs. Corporate Patent). This could be done for every other feature that we deem necessary in order to ensure progress in technology. Just think, we could out patent the rest of the corporate world and live in a technical niravana!
Oh wait. There's no money in that.
-Mindragon
The fact is people will code in whichever environment they are most comfortable with. Some folks still believe that ADA is an awesome language. Perhaps, within its own world, it is. However, that language isn't accessible to the greatest amount of developers available on the planet for that. If you're hired to do a project for a customer and you want to lock it into your own world so that you're the only one that can fix it when things go wrong, you'll go with ADA or with Vulcan (remember Wayne?).
Now Foxpro IMHO resides in the same world. FoxPro, like FileMaker and Access, offers a nice development interface for low to mid-tier development folks. So, for many businesses, it's cheaper to hire a FoxPro guy to quickly get something done than it is to hire an Oracle developer (not to mention the Oracle licenses and the pricy hardware that goes with it).
Unfortunately for the folks in the FoxPro market, they are actually facing stiff competition from the Linux world. Colleges and Universities are cranking out Perl/PHP/MySQL developers like mad. It's cheaper to teach the concepts of a development environment when you don't have to pay money to license the very development environment you're trying to teach.
Seeing their development community shrink, the FoxPro community, which has been long ignored by Microsoft, has provided a novel response to this very threat. Granted, it's a hack, but it provides an avenue to development that may have not existed for folks in the FoxPro community. Now, all those FoxPro apps will work on a 'nix box.
Microsoft, like Saddam Hussein, is very threatened by anything that will knock their base down. Their main revenue base relies on Windows/Office installations. Foxpro is something that they do receive some monies for from time to time. It may not be a strong profit center, but they do get monies from Windows and Office licenses that those FoxPro applications run in parallel with. They believe that this powerbase is threatened by allowing FoxPro to run on a 'nix/OpenOffice environment.
Microsoft is trying to prevent a repeat of how they got to where they are today. In a sense, they're trying to firewall those openings into that world. Microsoft got to where they are today by allowing development to be practically cheap on their environment (remember GWBasic??). As they progressed, they started to charge the very development community that built their kingdom. For a time (prior to the creation of the MSDN), development was free. Now, it's about $2,700 per developer for a MSDN universal license.
The 'nix community response to the Microsoft challenge has been amazing. Anyone can pickup a comparable development environment, while not as comprehensive as Microsoft's, is quite amazing. Foxpro adds a very interesting piece to that environment.
What Microsoft wants from FoxPro folks is the $200 license fee they get if you buy an $899 Dell with XP pro and Office Small Business for each client. Then the Visual Fox Pro developer can have his application run on that machine which is fully licensed, according to Microsoft EULA.
Realizing the problems with the FoxPro EULA, they made the change to the EULA to protect their market. Prior to the change, anyone could run VFP compiled applications on any operating system. Piracy aside, they would lose the $200 a machine they would ordinarily get by allowing FoxPro application distributions to be open.
Remember, Microsoft has to answer to shareholders. Red Hat doesn't....From the Mind of a Dragon.
According to Michigan Law, as of April 1st (April's fools?!) IP telephony is banned. This is due to the following sections passed by meatheads/cheeseheads in Michigan:
(b) Conceal the existence or place of origin or destination of any telecommunications service.
(c) To receive, disrupt, decrypt, transmit, retransmit, acquire, intercept, or facilitate the receipt, disruption, decryption, transmission, retransmission, acquisition, or interception of any telecommunications service without the express authority or actual consent of the telecommunications service provider.
For those who aren't in the know -- IP Telephony is a great way to save money by networking multiple offices together using IP Networks as the backbone for the phone system. So a call originating in New York could be delivered to the Los Angeles office via the internet and a VPN device. So much for that brilliant concept. While we're at it, Cisco's wonderful technical support service is outlawed in the state of Michigan... According to this section:
(2) A person shall not modify, alter, program, or reprogram a telecommunications access device for the purposes described in subsection (1).
(3) A person shall not deliver, offer to deliver, or advertise plans, written instructions, or materials for the manufacture, assembly, or development of an unlawful telecommunications access device or for the manufacture, assembly, or development of a telecommunications access device that the person intends to be used or knows or has reason to know will be used or is likely to be used to violate subsection (1). As used in this subsection, "materials" includes any hardware, cables, tools, data, computer software, or other information or equipment used or intended for use in the manufacture, assembly, or development of an unlawful telecommunications access device or a telecommunications access device.
So, I am proposing that we just pass legislation on Slashdot that bans the state of Michigan from any advances in computer technology. Leave 'em in the stone age where they seem to be happier.
Slashdot Mirror
Purchase Order Request #15398
Vendor Name: Personal Computing Environments
Ship To Name: Mindragon
Purchase Request:(1) MasterPeace Personal Computing Environment
Price: $7,000.00
Purchase Reason: An ergonomically designed space will reduce the risk of repeatitive strain injury (RSI) and increase my overall productivity while I'm in the office thereby decreasing expenses and generating additional revenues for the company.
Real Reason: This looks way cool!!!
From the Mind...of a Dragon...
In general, people are contributing their creations from their grey matter on the belief that they will be justly compensated for their efforts. Most people on this planet would not want to do something and not be compensated for their doing (unless they're communists, and even then...).
For instance, no one likes to go to work for an employer, work very hard for three years and receive absolutely no compensation for their work. In this instance, people would scream bloody murder at the employer for not providing adequate compensation.
Therefore, it necessarily follows that people that contribute substantive creations would like to have their works protected from those that seek to gain an unfair advantage in this world. In other words, no one likes having something stolen from them...especially if they've worked very hard and spent many millions on that something.
In the world of Linux, Microsoft and even piracy in general, there are a number of individuals and companies that are stealing these works and gaining compensation without rewarding the original creator of the works. Therefore, these individuals and companies are guilty of a crime. In this case, they are guilty of patent or copyright infringement.
If it is proven that IBM is guilty of patent infringement, then they deserve whatever they get. In addition, those works would need to be removed and replaced by better routines. It's a shame that IBM never learned from the Compaq BIOS experience and lawsuits.
-Mindragon
Here's a silly idea: Why don't we, as the technical community, start a non-profit company whose sole purpose in life is to patent and copyright the stuff that we love to see everyone use. That way, we can always use those features without fear of Amazons of the world taking over and telling us what we can and cannot use. This was done for the SARS genome code (Protective Patent vs. Corporate Patent). This could be done for every other feature that we deem necessary in order to ensure progress in technology. Just think, we could out patent the rest of the corporate world and live in a technical niravana! Oh wait. There's no money in that. -Mindragon
The fact is people will code in whichever environment they are most comfortable with. Some folks still believe that ADA is an awesome language. Perhaps, within its own world, it is. However, that language isn't accessible to the greatest amount of developers available on the planet for that. If you're hired to do a project for a customer and you want to lock it into your own world so that you're the only one that can fix it when things go wrong, you'll go with ADA or with Vulcan (remember Wayne?).
...From the Mind of a Dragon.
Now Foxpro IMHO resides in the same world. FoxPro, like FileMaker and Access, offers a nice development interface for low to mid-tier development folks. So, for many businesses, it's cheaper to hire a FoxPro guy to quickly get something done than it is to hire an Oracle developer (not to mention the Oracle licenses and the pricy hardware that goes with it).
Unfortunately for the folks in the FoxPro market, they are actually facing stiff competition from the Linux world. Colleges and Universities are cranking out Perl/PHP/MySQL developers like mad. It's cheaper to teach the concepts of a development environment when you don't have to pay money to license the very development environment you're trying to teach.
Seeing their development community shrink, the FoxPro community, which has been long ignored by Microsoft, has provided a novel response to this very threat. Granted, it's a hack, but it provides an avenue to development that may have not existed for folks in the FoxPro community. Now, all those FoxPro apps will work on a 'nix box.
Microsoft, like Saddam Hussein, is very threatened by anything that will knock their base down. Their main revenue base relies on Windows/Office installations. Foxpro is something that they do receive some monies for from time to time. It may not be a strong profit center, but they do get monies from Windows and Office licenses that those FoxPro applications run in parallel with. They believe that this powerbase is threatened by allowing FoxPro to run on a 'nix/OpenOffice environment.
Microsoft is trying to prevent a repeat of how they got to where they are today. In a sense, they're trying to firewall those openings into that world. Microsoft got to where they are today by allowing development to be practically cheap on their environment (remember GWBasic??). As they progressed, they started to charge the very development community that built their kingdom. For a time (prior to the creation of the MSDN), development was free. Now, it's about $2,700 per developer for a MSDN universal license.
The 'nix community response to the Microsoft challenge has been amazing. Anyone can pickup a comparable development environment, while not as comprehensive as Microsoft's, is quite amazing. Foxpro adds a very interesting piece to that environment.
What Microsoft wants from FoxPro folks is the $200 license fee they get if you buy an $899 Dell with XP pro and Office Small Business for each client. Then the Visual Fox Pro developer can have his application run on that machine which is fully licensed, according to Microsoft EULA.
Realizing the problems with the FoxPro EULA, they made the change to the EULA to protect their market. Prior to the change, anyone could run VFP compiled applications on any operating system. Piracy aside, they would lose the $200 a machine they would ordinarily get by allowing FoxPro application distributions to be open.
Remember, Microsoft has to answer to shareholders. Red Hat doesn't.
According to Michigan Law, as of April 1st (April's fools?!) IP telephony is banned. This is due to the following sections passed by meatheads/cheeseheads in Michigan:
... According to this section:
(b) Conceal the existence or place of origin or destination of any telecommunications service.
(c) To receive, disrupt, decrypt, transmit, retransmit, acquire, intercept, or facilitate the receipt, disruption, decryption, transmission, retransmission, acquisition, or interception of any telecommunications service without the express authority or actual consent of the telecommunications service provider.
For those who aren't in the know -- IP Telephony is a great way to save money by networking multiple offices together using IP Networks as the backbone for the phone system. So a call originating in New York could be delivered to the Los Angeles office via the internet and a VPN device. So much for that brilliant concept. While we're at it, Cisco's wonderful technical support service is outlawed in the state of Michigan
(2) A person shall not modify, alter, program, or reprogram a telecommunications access device for the purposes described in subsection (1).
(3) A person shall not deliver, offer to deliver, or advertise plans, written instructions, or materials for the manufacture, assembly, or development of an unlawful telecommunications access device or for the manufacture, assembly, or development of a telecommunications access device that the person intends to be used or knows or has reason to know will be used or is likely to be used to violate subsection (1). As used in this subsection, "materials" includes any hardware, cables, tools, data, computer software, or other information or equipment used or intended for use in the manufacture, assembly, or development of an unlawful telecommunications access device or a telecommunications access device.
So, I am proposing that we just pass legislation on Slashdot that bans the state of Michigan from any advances in computer technology. Leave 'em in the stone age where they seem to be happier.
Horseshoes (the real thing, not a book), Handgrenades (not the band) and Atom Bombs (a 'la Suddam Insane) cannot be found on Amazon.